Knicks Rookie Ewing Is Nba's Center Of Attention

October 25, 1985|By Barry Cooper of The Sentinel Staff

He has yet to play his first regular-season game in the National Basketball Association, yet Patrick Ewing, 7 feet, 235 pounds, has been scrutinized as carefully as a dangerous disease. People have pored over his background and have tried to peer into his soul. But Ewing, anything but gregarious, has slammed the door in the face of the curious.

Ewing, the New York Knicks' rookie center, seems intent on being as mysterious as he was at Georgetown University, where he led the Hoyas to the Final Four three times and the 1984 national championship.

Precious little has been learned about him since Knicks vice president Dave DeBusschere all but pulled Ewing's name out of a hat during the much- talked-about NBA lottery.

We now know that Ewing has a 4 1/2-year-old son who recently underwent successful open-heart surgery; Ewing received a $5 million, interest-free loan from the Knicks; he lives in Fort Lee, N.J.; and when on the road with the Knicks, Ewing prefers to eat alone in his room.

Trying to gather any other personal information on Ewing would be only slightly less difficult than obtaining the home telephone numbers of CIA operatives in Moscow.

Perhaps before the interminable NBA season is over we will know more about Ewing. He makes his regular-season debut Saturday, when the Knicks face the Celtics in a 1 p.m. game that will be televised nationally by CBS.

The contest -- probably a mismatch -- is unlikely to reveal much. The Knicks are among the league's poorest teams, with several of their top players either unable or unwilling to perform.

Forward Bernard King, the league's best scorer, has not reported and still is recovering from knee surgery; forward Marvin Webster, out all last season with hepatitis, has not passed his physical; center Bill Cartwright, out last year with a broken leg, has been slow to round into form; reserve forward James Bailey continues to suffer from fainting spells; talented guard Louis Orr is a contract holdout.

With so many players sidelined, the Knicks are likely to be lousy, even with Ewing. Still, the spotlight will be on Ewing, and he may well turn out to be a malady for other NBA centers.

For sure he is the same Patrick Ewing much of America has learned to hate: hot-tempered, menacing on the court and off, generally unfriendly toward autograph seekers, often combative in media interviews.

But if Ewing is all of those things, he is also perhaps the best rookie center ever to enter the NBA, at least since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar -- then Lew Alcindor -- graduated from UCLA and joined the Milwaukee Bucks in 1969.

The Knicks understandably feel they have the next great NBA center, a man who can help deliver championship teams and sellout crowds. Already the Knicks are a winner in one area. They sold only 5,700 season tickets last year. But now, with a picture of Ewing gracing their season-ticket brochures, the Knicks already have sold more than 10,000 season tickets. It is possible that all the team's home games -- Madison Square Garden's capacity is 19,591 -- will be sellouts

Ewing is being rewarded handsomely, too. Details of his contract were not revealed, but the best guess is that Ewing signed a 7-year deal worth about $15 million. In addition, there are incentive bonuses and clauses that could push the package to $30 million over 10 years.

Clearly, he is the center of attention. Now the question is how much will he do for the Knicks. Will he be another Bill Russell? Wilt Chamberlain? Knicks Coach Hubie Brown is cautious of the comparisons.

''In the NBA, one guy can't do it for a team,'' Brown said. ''Wilt Chamberlain is the prime example of that. People ask me if Patrick Ewing will do for us what Bill Russell did for the Celtics, but they forget that when Russell got there, they had Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman. Those other great players were already there.

''For us to be a championship team taken in the same breath as Los Angeles and Boston, we need Bernard King, Bill Cartwright and forward Pat Cummings, not just Patrick Ewing. But Cartwright missed all last season, and Bernard King isn't remotely close to opening the season now.''

The injury-riddled Knicks, who compete in the same division with the Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers, were 24-58 last year. In Milwaukee, Jabbar joined a team that had gone 27-55 the year before he arrived. In Jabbar's rookie season, the Bucks did a complete turnaround, compiling a 56-26 mark.

No one knows if Ewing will provide such a change for the Knicks. But few doubt how effective he will be.

''I expect him to be a consistent scorer,'' Brown said. ''He has the jump hook, he has the drop step, and he runs the floor as well as any big man ever has.''